REV. JESSE JAMES and
THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH IN ARKANSAS
Our ancestor, Rev. Jesse James, was born 1770-1780 in North Carolina, and arrived in Missouri Territory by 1815. In June 1816, the Missouri Bethel Baptist Association met in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri and sent Elders Jesse James, Benjamin Clark, and James Philip Edwards as missionaries to Lawrence County, then Missouri Territory, for the purpose of establishing the first Baptist Church in present day Arkansas. The Bethel minutes of September 1818 state the church was constituted that year with twelve members and was represented by Elders Jesse James, Benjamin Clark and Richard Brazil. Dr. J. M. Peck, the famous missionary, stated when he visited in 1818 Elders Jesse James and Benjamin Clark were the ministers and the location of the church was on Fourche 'a Thomas, and the name of the church was Salem. According to the Bethel Minutes of 1819, Salem Church was constituted into another church named Union, also located in Lawrence County on Cypress Creek, with fourteen members and represented by Jesse James and Richard Brazil. The Bethel Minutes of 1820 state Union Church in Lawrence County was represented by Jesse James (not present), Richard Brazil and Wilis Wilson. Rev. James was again a messenger from Union in 1823 but was not mentioned in later minutes. David Orr, who was sent to Lawrence County by the Bethel Baptist Association in 1828, stated that when he arrived Rev. James was enfeebled and incapacitated for work.
Rev. Jesse James was enumerated in the 1820 re-constructed census of Arkansas Territory for Lawrence County. The Arkansas Gazette in an article dated 9-8-1821 states Col. John Hines and Jesse James were elected to serve a two-year term in the House of Representatives from Lawrence County. This was only the second session of the Legislature and it met for the first time in Little Rock on October 1, 1821. Rev. James lived in Columbia Township in Lawrence County very close to the then disputed Arkansas-Missouri line and apparently because of the boundaries he and several other residents of Columbia Township were enumerated in Wayne County, Missouri in 1830. He paid taxes in Columbia Township, Lawrence County, Arkansas for the years 1830 through 1833. In 1832, while not actively a minister, he did perform the marriage ceremony for his daughter Abigail to Jesse Dodd on 13 November 1832, and was listed in Lawrence County Marriage Book A, page 34, as a licensed preacher.
In the early part of 1834, Rev. Jesse James moved his family to present day Saline County, Arkansas. The Arkansas Gazette in a news article dated 24 June 1834 records another marriage performed by the Rev. Jesse James in present-day Saline County, Arkansas.
The probate records of Saline County, Arkansas give us an approximate date of the death of Rev. Jesse James. The bill of sale for his estate was dated 5 March 1836.
In 1954, the Arkansas Baptist State Convention placed a marker at the site of Salem Church and in 1993 it was replaced by another monument. The present location of this site is in Randolph County, off Highway 38, about 3 miles west of Maynard, Arkansas. (Photograph courtesy of Carole Mayfield).
Submitted by:
Duane Wilson and Carole Mayfield
230 So. Sleight St. 29 Ophelia Drive
Naperville, IL 60540 Maumelle, AR 72113
Email DWi3095824 Email CARMAY@aol.com